Papercut Interactive

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the marketing manager for Southern Champion Tray, a paperboard packaging manufacturer.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Papercut Interactive?

We wanted to revamp our website. We wanted a more user-friendly, interactive, and dynamic site to show off our products. We sell through distributors, but restaurants, food trucks, and other end users in the food industry go to our website and look at our products. We wanted the descriptions and pictures of our products to be more easily accessible. The old site was heavy on text, and we wanted to make it more visually appealing by showing pictures of our employees and plants and everything that we do in the community.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Papercut Interactive gave us a paper outline of how the site would be constructed including what information would be on each part of the site. We used that outline to make comments and changes.

They designed the homepage so it contains clickable sections as you scroll down. You can hover over each section to see what kind of information you can get if you click on it. They also designed the layout for how each subpage would work. For instance, on our product pages, you can go to a food service category, and then you can go to ChampPak, a grab-and-go box that we produce. Once you get to ChampPak, you can see the individual products underneath that. Each product page features the capability to see 360-degree photos of the products so a consumer can spin the box and get a 360-degree view of what the box looks like.

We also have a Spanish site that mirrors the English site. You just click on “Español” to toggle between the sites. We do our own interpretation, but we had them build out the whole site to get us up and running on the Spanish side.

Finally, they provide advertising services on an as-needed basis. They make sure that anything that we add to the website is search engine optimized and that we’re not going astray. We use ExpressionEngine to make our edits and add pages.

What is the team composition?

I was mostly in contact with the project manager and one of the owners was involved as well. I’ve not had direct contact their developers.

How did you come to work with Papercut Interactive?

I don’t know why they were chosen, but we’re happy they were.

What is the status of this engagement?

We worked together from early 2016–November 2016.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?

The traffic increased dramatically since we rolled out the revamp of the website. The website is a lot better. It’s attractive and makes you want to look through the pages. When I look at competitive websites, I’m very proud of ours. Customers, brokers, and our sales staff are all thrilled with the update. Employees that visit the website regularly are amazed at the change.

How did Papercut Interactive perform from a project management standpoint?

They were wonderful. We needed support, and they were there for us. They’re very professional and willing to help. They’re very responsive. I was in contact with them several times a week via email and phone calls. They were able to give us the beta site to look at the site while work was in progress.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Their willingness to offer suggestions on things that we need, how quickly they worked on it, and how accurate they are with their estimates were all impressive. I was so comfortable with them, respected them, and had a lot of confidence in them. They did a really good job and they’re wonderful to work with.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Highly consider them over anybody that you’re considering. I recommend Papercut Interactive to any other clients.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the marketing director of an IT and cloud solutions provider.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Papercut Interactive?

We needed someone to help us with WordPress development.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

They transitioned our website to WordPress and did a complete redesign of the website as well. They implemented several marketing automations and tracking scripts and embedded HubSpot marketing automation software, Drift live chat software, and Google Analytics as well.

What is the team composition?

I mainly communicated with the project manager.

How did you come to work with Papercut Interactive?

They are local, which I prefer. It’s easier to build a long-term relationship and partnership with a company that’s close by. The company leadership consists of trustworthy, high integrity people.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent $30,000–$50,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in August 2017 and the work is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?

Our staff talks about how great the new website looks. Papercut Interactive created a web design, look, and feel that makes our employees proud. Since the website was released, I’ve heard positive feedback from peers in marketing and also from prospects and customers. The most common feedback I get is that the site is beautiful and the layout is very user-friendly. I really like that they created specific functionality to promote and steer users to our podcast section.

How did Papercut Interactive perform from a project management standpoint?

They were always on point communicating with me. They did a fantastic job of providing information upfront about timelines and landmark events. We communicated weekly regarding progress details. Anytime we approach a landmark event, they contact me ahead of time to either get feedback or let me know my responsibilities. They are managing the project very effectively.

What did you find most impressive about them?

It’s helpful that they offer expertise in pay-per-click, SEO, and other digital marketing services in addition to web design.

Are there any areas they could improve?

When possible, I like doing business with companies with expertise in my industry so I don’t have to spend as much time educating them on my business.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I'm the vice president at Nichols Fleet Equipment, Inc. We work with construction equipment and heavy equipment markets.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Papercut Interactive?

We had a very outdated website that wasn't mobile responsive, so we were looking for a company to build a new website for us. We're in the market that doesn't have a lot of great websites, so our goal was to have the best website in our industry.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

We had a few conceptual meetings where we brainstormed different ideas. They were new to our industry, so they worked hard to understand our business and our audience. Then, they started building a mobile responsive website from scratch, developing the code and managing the design. We provided most of the content and images. They educated me on how to make changes to the website, so I can now edit it on a day-to-day basis.

After the website launched, they've been providing targeted advertising, social media marketing, and SEO work for us.

What is the team composition?

When we were building the website, we were working with 5–6 of their team members, including a project manager and an account representative. It's a small company, so some people moved to different roles, but we were always able to stay in good contact with everyone we needed.

How did you come to work with them?

I talked to 3–4 different companies. Papercut Interactive was a referral from someone who had worked with them previously. They were a local company and had the expertise that we needed. Also, we liked the examples of work they had done for other local companies, so we chose them.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with them in November 2015 and we launched the site in April 2016.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?

It was a long process, but they achieved all of our goals. We're very happy with the result. The website is live and we continue seeing an increase in traffic. People who have used the site report satisfaction. It's easy to manage and I can update it myself. Several manufacturers that we represent (which are much bigger companies) remodeled their websites based largely on what we'd done with our site.

How did they perform from a project management standpoint?

It was a very collaborative process. They've always been open to feedback and answered our questions. We talked to them almost every day when they were building the website. Since then, we've been in touch about once a week to discuss other things they're helping us with.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They're very responsive and always pick up the phone when I call them. They invested their time in understanding what we do, which helped make the project a success.

Are there any areas they could improve?

Their prices are not the lowest, but I'm willing to pay for that kind of work.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

I'd certainly recommend them. If you're looking to do a web development project, talk to them. You'll be pleased with the results.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I am the creative director in the marketing department a government organization.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Papercut?

Our website was several years old and becoming out of date. The biggest issue we were facing was the move towards a responsive design. We were at least a couple of years behind on that.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Our website is complex and there is a lot of information that needs to be conveyed through the site. The biggest challenge—aside from making it responsive on mobile devices—was creating a nice, clean design that would communicate what we do for our primary audiences, in an attractive and easy to understand way. They met with me and with individuals from each department in the company, in order to get an idea of what each stakeholder needed to be represented on the site.

The site was built using ExpressionEngine. The business directory is one of our most used features, and it had been quite problematic. All our members were included in a rather outdated database software. Getting that to interface with a modern site had its own challenges, but Papercut was able to do it. Similarly, our events calendar is another high-traffic part of our site, which also interfaces directly with our database. Papercut was able to connect it and have it work seamlessly.

In total, they’ve designed several sites for us, including the main chamber page and one for a new economic initiative we were launching. The latter one does not interface with our database, but it does have a lot of complex data on the backend. We have gone through an intense process, creating some custom data-entry tools, especially for the insider report section. The data we enter on the backend is represented visually on the frontend.

SEO work was offered as part of the web design. They included some tools on the backend, so that, going forward, we could handle this aspect on our own.

What is the team composition?

Taylor Hartley [Marketing and Communications Director] was our project manager. We had several meetings with their designer and a couple of other team members. I typically worked directly with two or three members at a time, but the size of the team varied.

How did you come to work with Papercut?

As a membership organization, we had certain requirements for selecting a vendor. We put out a formal RFP [request for proposals] to several companies that offered web design services. Many of them declined simply because the site was so large and complex, which narrowed the selection down on its own. We looked at the quality of work produced by the remaining three or four candidates and decided on Papercut.

We gave them a trial on a smaller site we were working on, an online magazine for member news. We were impressed with the work they did on that front. Their price wasn’t the lowest, but the quality was our primary concern.

How much have you invested with them?

The chamber site had a cost of $60,000. The one for our economic initiative had a cost of $40,000. The total cost of Papercut’s work has been $100,000 so far.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with Papercut in late 2014. The magazine site launched in 2015, and we began working on the chamber site and the economic project site that same year. Both of those launched in 2016.

We still engage Papercut for break-fix work on the sites they designed, but we don’t have any new projects at the moment.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?

Our business directory looks a lot more attractive than it used to and its traffic increased immediately the new launch. We’ve had a significant increase in our mobile traffic, as well as overall traffic. This was to be expected when going from non-responsive to responsive. We also heard anecdotal feedback from members—they really like the site and find it a lot easier to navigate. Our internal team members love it.

How did Papercut perform from a project management standpoint?

Considering some of the demands I placed on them at times, and the fact that they were able to roll with the punches, I’m very happy. During the heavier portions of the work, I was in contact with our project manager multiple times per week.

What did you find most impressive about them?

This project has been considerably more thorough than the previous project. Papercut has high technical aptitude and very good design chops. At the end of the day, the project management piece made the difference.

We wanted to launch both websites at the end of 2016. My IT person was away, so we were using subcontractors to try to get everything up-and-running. I was on the phone with our project manager for hours during that process, putting out fires, and trying to get everything ready. We ultimately managed to finish it, and the fact that they were willing to work through that definitely impressed me.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I’m sure there is something to mention, but they’ve been great overall.

Do you have any advice for future clients of theirs?

Take as much time as possible and plan. It can feel like the project will take forever, but the more upfront planning is done, the smoother things will go in the end.